I changed my security level to "higher" in Mandrake Security in Mandrake Control Center . Rebooted the machine, logged in and Mandrake hangs on "initialising system services". The same happens when I log in as root.
Is there a way to change the security level back to "standard" before the "initialising system services" sequence?
It took me 16 hours on my 56k connection to "update" Mandrake with the latest fixes the last time. I don't want to do that again. All my Mandrake linux notes are on that machine too. Please help.

I found out elsewhere that if I booted via the failsafe method and logged in as root I could change the security level using "msec 2" i.e. "standard" and I would boot into Mandrake.
However, the problem still exists that when I login with a "higher" security level my system hangs as before. Obviously, additional services must be invoked when I have a "higher" security level but how do I find out which service is hanging the system?

John

msec 3 is the standard security level try http://www.mandrakeuser.org/docs/sec...ec2.html#level

2) As soon as you opt for a higher level, the reason for the hang as you call it IS because it expects you to manually allow services. I haven't checked what services you are alluding to, but it is likely its not a hang but a wait - waiting for you to use the console/terminal aka command line interface to issue a command.

IMHO, get yourself a easy to use firewall like guarddog and stay at standard security.

If the threat is from within the building you can remove some permissions to achieve a hardened system.

All secure systems are by their very nature inconvenient, so think about your needs for paranoid settings.

No offence intended

Thanks for explaining the problem. I appreciate your suggestion of guarddog as work-around too.